Jealous Hearts
by sol-li
Summary: Frustrated by Miroku's apparent lack of attention, Sango tries to make him jealous by paying more attention to Inuyasha. But that only leads to further complications for everyone...
1. Jealous Hearts Chapter One

CHAPTER ONE  
  
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"Lecherous monk," Sango muttered. She slid into the warm water, splashing it over her chest and shoulders. Her long black hair started to cling wetly to her back. I don't know what's wrong with him! He just gets on my nerves SO much, and I can't...  
  
"Are you okay, Sango?" Kagome waded over to her friend, with a towel pressed over her chest. There was no one except Sango there, but just in case Miroku was watching, or anyone else stumbled on the hot springs.  
  
"Yes..."  
  
"I want the truth, now."  
  
"No," Sango said quietly.  
  
"Wanna talk about it?" Kagome splashed around in the water. "Let me guess. It's Miroku, right?"  
  
"Why does it always do this?" Sango said heatedly. "Every single time we come to a village, he's propositioning girls all over the place! He asks every single one who's pretty enough! It's 'will you bear my child' left and right and... I'm just frustrated."  
  
"I can see why." Kagome sat down beside her friend and began scrubbing herself with a bar of soap. She had given up just about every luxury from her time, and had gotten used to the rougher, dirtier times from five hundred years before. But soap was one thing she didn't plan to go without. Or shampoo. Or towels...  
  
"I suppose it isn't as bad as what Inuyasha does," Sango said morosely. "Sure, Miroku chases lots of girls, but at least he doesn't actually get attached to any of them."  
  
"What would happen if he ever did? Get attached, I mean?"  
  
Sango said nothing. She hadn't even considered that -- Miroku was such a womanizer that she hadn't even thought about the possibility of him really falling for someone. That thought only made her mood dip even lower. She sank in up to her chin in the water, sighing.  
  
Kagome paused in her scrubbing, then picked up her shampoo. "You like him, don't you?" she asked. "Is that why his womanizing bothers you?"  
  
"It's not that," Sango said darkly.   
  
"Then what is it?"  
  
"Because I can't tell what he's thinking. One minute he'll be giving me a reason to think he DOES like me, and then the next minute he'll be off chasing half a dozen village girls." Sango savagely wrung out her washcloth, as if it were the wayward monk's throat. "I don't know if he's just toying with me."  
  
"Ohhhhh, so that's it. You don't like not knowing," Kagome said slowly. She frowned, thinking. "You really can't tell?"  
  
"Miroku flirts all the time," Sango said. "How am I supposed to tell if I'm any different from the dozens of other girls he grabs?"  
  
"Jealousy."  
  
"Huh?"  
  
"The first time I ever realized that Inuyasha might not hate me after all was when he started getting jealous," Kagome said, lathering her hair. "After all, if he hated me like he was claiming he did then, why would he care whether I liked other boys?" She paused. "That was before Kikyo, though he still acts like a lunatic whenever Koga's around."  
  
Sango quickly steered the conversation back to herself and Miroku, knowing that the subject of Inuyasha's onetime love depressed Kagome. "I don't understand how jealousy can help me."  
  
"Don't you get it?" Kagome rinsed her hair out in the little waterfall, looking at Sango with bright eyes. "If he gets jealous of you, that must mean he's not just flirting, right? He never gets jealous of the village girls he gropes, right?"  
  
"I guess not," Sango said reluctantly. "But what should I do?"  
  
"It's easy. Pay attention to another guy. Miroku's bound to notice."  
  
"Pay... attention?"  
  
"You don't have to flirt or anything. Just, you know, pay attention to him."  
  
"There aren't any other guys I see very often. Aside from Inuyasha, that is." Sango thoughtfully dabbed her face with a washcloth.   
  
Kagome straightened up, wringing out her sopping hair. A thoughtful look was creeping into her eyes. "I guess he is the only guy other than Miroku that you see, isn't he?"  
  
TO BE CONTINUED 


	2. Jealous Hearts Chapter Two

CHAPTER TWO  
  
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Miroku was meditating when the girls returned from the hot springs, still toweling their wet hair. Inuyasha was lying on his side under a tree, twitching a little. When Kagome went to check on him, she saw with a smile that he was already fast asleep. Sango sat down beside a large flat rock and began sharpening her weapons.  
  
But a little while later, Inuyasha started moaning and mumbling in his sleep, then kicking and clutching at something. No one made any move to wake him. When Inuyasha had nightmares, no one was stupid enough to disturb him. Miroku had once found that out the hard way; it had taken Kagome over an hour to stop the bleeding.  
  
Suddenly Inuyasha gasped and sat up.  
  
"Another bad dream?" Kagome asked.  
  
"Y-yeah," Inuyasha said breathlessly. "Aw damn, that was a bad one!"  
  
"What was it now?" Kagome closed one eye and tried to thread her needle. "Was it that one where Koga takes over the world with the sacred jewel? Or the one where Kikyo turns out to be a man?"  
  
"Worse'n'that..." Inuyasha hugged himself as if he were cold.  
  
"What happened?"  
  
Inuyasha grimaced and flushed. "I'd rather not say."  
  
"Oh come on," Kagome wheedled. She started stitching a rip in her sleeve. "If it was a BAD dream, then there can't be anything too embarrassing, is there? So come on, tell me."  
  
Inuyasha gulped. "I had a dream that we finally hunted down Naraku, and he... seduced me."  
  
There was a long pause. "Ewwww," Kagome finally said. "I can see why you didn't wanna talk about it." She put down the torn uniform and began rummaging through her backpack. "Hold on, I found a book about dream interpretation on my last trip through the well. Since you've been having all these weird nightmares, I thought I'd try to interpret your dreams..."  
  
"Does it really work?" Inuyasha asked, perking up slightly.  
  
"We won't know until we try." Kagome settled back against a tree and started intently reading the book. "Let's see... despised person expressing love for dreamer... ambivalence... uh, according to this it means that you have a very tumultuous love life."  
  
There was a long pause. "Well, that told us nothing!" Kagome burst out, tossing the book over her shoulder.  
  
"Aw, dammit," Inuyasha mumbled, huddling up on the ground.  
  
.  
  
Sango glanced at Miroku out of the corner of her eye. When the monk started to look back at her, she quickly turned her eyes back to her swords. Miroku watched her curiously for a moment, then went back to studying the scroll he had been reading over the past days.  
  
I don't feel right about this, Sango thought. Pretending to ignore him? It doesn't seem honest... but then again... how else will I be able to find out if he really cares about me?  
  
"Is something wrong, Sango?" Miroku suddenly said.  
  
"No," Sango said, deliberately keeping her answer short and curt.  
  
Then she quickly stood up and went over to where Inuyasha and Kagome were sitting. Inuyasha was still nervous and creeped-out by his recent dream, and Kagome was trying to assure him that there was no way in the world it could ever come true.  
  
"I think you just got the cold shoulder," Shippo said meditatively, glancing up at Miroku.  
  
"I suppose I did," Miroku murmured. It wasn't a feeling he was very familiar with. And he didn't like it at all.  
  
Sango knelt down and smiled warmly. "Don't worry, Inuyasha. Your mind can come up with all sorts of strange things, especially if you're under pressure. So just put the dreams out of your mind. After all, I doubt Koga has the brains to take over the world. And we all know Kikyo isn't a man."  
  
Inuyasha blinked. "Uhh... thanks, Sango," he said, a little surprised.   
  
Kagome smiled a little. "Thanks, Sango. Maybe he'll be a little less weird about his nightmares from now on."  
  
Sango gave Inuyasha a deliberate pat on the shoulder, then walked back to her swords. She could already feel the monk watching her intently. But she just started whetting her blades over again, humming softly to herself as she pointedly ignored him.  
  
TO BE CONTINUED 


End file.
